"Run away! Run away!" ... what if they don't?

[Lanefan]

I think that there must be a series of decisions for the DM to make that leads to a TPK. The players are certainly contributing, but still the DM is making decisions along the way that head in the TPK direction.

The DM picks or rolls a very difficult encounter.
The DM doesn’t give ample warning that it may be a deadly encounter.
The DM does not allow for other ways of dealing with the encounter beyond combat.
The DM does nothing to mitigate the deadliness of the encounter.
The DM has the monsters pursue PCs who try to flee.
The DM has the monsters kill any down but living PCs.

Again, the players can certainly continue to make things worse for themselves...attacking when they could sneak away, not running when they realize they’re in trouble, and so on. But the DM still has to make decisions for the TPK to happen.

And sometimes it only takes one bad event to act as a seed for a series of other worse events, in an otherwise relatively ordinary situation.

The only TPK I've ever DMed was like this.

The situation: during their explorations the party found a shaft with a ladder going down, so down they went, sending their toughest warrior down first (with some extra magic gear, if memory serves) to deal with any trouble. At the bottom awaited an opponent who in ordinary circumstances would have been quite beatable by this party...but not here, as it turned out. Here, as soon as the warrior reached the bottom he was heavily charmed and turned against the party, who he then methodically mowed down as they reached the bottom of the ladder. A few party members tried to paralyze or over-charm or otherwise restrain him but he just kept making save after save...

Once the rest were all dead, having achieved all of 3 points damage to the actual opponent, the charmed warrior became a slave of said opponent...who being undead didn't need to eat (and who could renew the charm on a whim). The warrior, however, did need to eat; and thus eventually starved to death.

This wasn't a case of bad decisions, just sheer bad luck for the most part. And in a truly rare occurrence, nobody had a getaway car.

I just fail to see the upside to a TPK. Or at least enough of an upside to it to ever suggest it as advice on wjat to do with players who make foolish decisions for their characters.

Again I reiterate, you're 99% of the time not going to get a full TPK - somebody is going to have a getaway car of some sort, and the party will go on.

Lanefan

 

[Les Moore]

I think the issue might be referring to particular outcomes as being anyone's "fault." That's a pretty negative way of looking at it in my view. The DM presented a situation, reasonably informed players made some decisions, and the result of these two things led to a TPK.

The two questions that need to be asked at that point are:

1. Did everyone have fun despite coming to "a grisly end, torn apart by ferocious monsters or done in by a nefarious villain?"

2. Did the group's play "create an exciting story of bold adventurers confronting deadly perils?"​

If the answers to those two questions is "Yes," then the goals of play as defined by the game itself have been achieved even with the TPK. And that's a good, simple way to look at things in my view.

The TPK can be a way for the campaign to live on. New characters in the module can now buy the partial map of the dungeon from a NPC at a local
tavern, for instance. Some halfling, or goblin, who was intent on robbing the party, may have seen the whole episode, and have crucial info for sale
about the dungeon which could save the next party of explorers a lot of time and trouble.

Pming, you mention pursuit. As a beekeeper, I have some experience in this area. The closer to a lair, or home setting
you are, IME, the more rigorously it will be defended. Pursuit is usually in direct proportion to how much interaction
you had with the monsters in question, and whether they were injured before you turned and fled.

 

[Imaculata]

But I have to ask: what if the players/PCs don't follow the breadcrumbs? What if they suddenly decide for some reason, maybe an adventure or two in, "Screw this boats and pirates stuff, all that's gonna do is drown us. Let's head for the hills and see what adventures might lie there..."? In other words, what if they never "come at the story" you've got in mind at all? While I'm sure you're capable of hitting this curveball, given some other posts you've made I'm more asking whether you'd be willing to swing at it and let the players take the campaign in a totally different direction to what you had in mind.

One of my main focuses is exploration. I tend to over-prepare, so that if the players run off in a random direction, I know what is there. I have dozens of random encounter tables specifically for this purpose, and I'll usually find a way to tie some of these encounters into the overall narrative. To the players this makes it seem like their discoveries are all pieces of one gigantic puzzle, even if I'm just winging it.

The main plot is basically just a framework that helps me build new stories on the fly.
If the players don't follow the story, the story will come to them in some way. Be it directly or loosely connected to a plot.

I also know that when my players ignore the plot, they tend to chase very predictable things. So I make sure to spread the breadcrumbs in exactly those locations, so that their personal side trips actually bring them towards interesting plot points. I know for example that since one of the players plays a priest, he will not miss an opportunity to visit the local church. So of course I drop some breadcrumbs there. But even if they completely ignore all those hooks, there's enough of a foundation to improvise things on the spot.

For example, there were a few sessions where the players decided just hang around in a city for a while. I had no trouble coming up all sort of interesting things for them to do. From discovering a hag coven underneath the city, to attending a circus (where one of the players met their long lost brother), a dramatic assassination of the local ruler, a meeting with the local thieves guild, and getting a dwarf captain out of jail. Some of these were random encounters, others were things that I had pre-written, or improvised on the spot. But in the end I was able to tie most of these back into the main plot. Allies the players had made through these side-adventures, joined them on future exploits, and even joined them in battle.

 

[Imaculata]

DMs are storytellers, "the game's lead storyteller" in fact. I don't think it's a great idea to "have a story in mind" though, depending on what is meant by that. I see "the story" as the tale that emerges during play as the DM presents situations, the players do stuff, and the DM narrates results. So I might have an adventure location where goblins and kobolds are warring over territory.

But surely you have a reason in mind why the goblins and kobolds are warring over territory? This is what I mean with story. There usually is some sort of a plot, be it very simple, or very clever.

What I wouldn't want to do as DM is decide that the characters are going to ally themselves with the kobolds against the goblins because that's "the story" I have a mind to tell as the "lead storyteller." It just means I control two-thirds of the basic conversation of the game and present the situation. "The story" comes later, which may or may not involve the characters allying with the kobolds.

To me storytelling involves not only coming up with the conflict (goblins and kobolds warring over territory), but also the reason for that conflict, and various possible scenarios that could emerge from the player's choices. One such scenario may be that the players form an alliance with the kobolds. But maybe they form an alliance with the goblins instead? Or maybe they decide to kill them all, or try and establish a peace between the two factions? While I would never steer my players towards a specific choice, I would at least think up some follow ups to some of the most likely scenarios. That in my opinion, is storytelling.

 

[Psikerlord#]

One of the critical things 5e is missing is a formal and transparent party retreat rule, to (i) make fleeing an explicit and understood option, (ii) get players out of a bind mid-combat when they go in too reckless/get caught out, and (iii) most important of all, to free GMs from the shackles of balanced encounters.

http://dndhackersguild.weebly.com/blog/party-retreat-rule

DND cyclopedia has a retreat rule section, and up to about 2e I think, maybe 1e, there was the Monster Reaction table, which actually had approx only 25% of hostile (ie most monsters weren't itching for a straight up fight). These 2 rules in combo removed the need for balanced encounters, but just the retreat rule will do, ime. Both of these rules were gone by 3e, which was a huge mistake in hindsight. Huge mistake. I dont know why the devs removed them, but I'd like to know their reasoning, if anyone has any insights.

#Gameplay>Story
#HooksNotPlots
#PrepToImprovise

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, in the first season, when one of the "obviously main characters" (Lord Stark) is captured, beaten, etc, and about to be killed... (1) In a more "new skool" style campaign, he wouldn't die. Something would miraculously happen (Deus Ex Machina) to stop or otherwise postpone the execution...giving the "PC" another opportunity to escape. ...-or-... (2) In a more "old skool" (like my games), he dies. That's it. Dead. Head, off. The "PC" doesn't escape. His execution isn't postponed by a freak attack by some unknown army at the gates, or some monster swooping down, or a guard rebellion, or anything. Dead. Sorry. Grab the dice and roll up a new 1st level PC.

Um, excuse me! Stark is alive. He was replaced by a faceless man or <insert one of the other ridiculous Stark is alive theories here>.

 

[Oofta]

Some of these stories and explanations remind me of a DM I once had (not the one with the giant hand). Whenever the enemy crit, he would pull out a 6 sided die that had a different body part on each side. If he rolled a leg, your leg was crippled, and so on.

If he rolled the head your head was chopped off and your PC was dead. So after every critical hit (and he liked to throw mobs of low level goons) you had a 1 in 6 chance of dying. Was this "fair" or "realistic"? After all he wasn't deciding the outcome, his 6-sided die was. He had no control over it, it was random.

The thing is that it wasn't really random - he had decided that the die dictated the outcome. Just like a DM deciding that a random monster chart will dictate the outcome. The DM is the world. Deciding to use a die roll to determine what happens when a critical hit happens or if and what monster(s) will stumble on the party in the middle of the night is a DM decision.

I've killed off my fair share of PCs in my years of DMing and have had a couple of TPKs or near TPKs with only 1 PC surviving. My PCs don't have plot armor. They do have ... I don't know ... plot deflectors? Because they are the hero and the protagonist of their story.

That's not true for everyone. For some people, the PCs are disposable and easily replaced and a deadly game where you can just pull in a backup character is a speed bump. Personally I wouldn't want to play in that kind of game long term, so I ask my players what type of game they prefer.

 

[Imaculata]

DND cyclopedia has a retreat rule section, and up to about 2e I think, maybe 1e, there was the Monster Reaction table, which actually had approx only 25% of hostile (ie most monsters weren't itching for a straight up fight). These 2 rules in combo removed the need for balanced encounters, but just the retreat rule will do, ime. Both of these rules were gone by 3e, which was a huge mistake in hindsight. Huge mistake. I dont know why the devs removed them, but I'd like to know their reasoning, if anyone has any insights.

Doesn't 3e have the withdraw action?

 

[Sunseeker]

Doesn't 3e have the withdraw action?

It does. Though its not terribly helpful.

 

[iserith]

But surely you have a reason in mind why the goblins and kobolds are warring over territory? This is what I mean with story. There usually is some sort of a plot, be it very simple, or very clever.

To me storytelling involves not only coming up with the conflict (goblins and kobolds warring over territory), but also the reason for that conflict, and various possible scenarios that could emerge from the player's choices. One such scenario may be that the players form an alliance with the kobolds. But maybe they form an alliance with the goblins instead? Or maybe they decide to kill them all, or try and establish a peace between the two factions? While I would never steer my players towards a specific choice, I would at least think up some follow ups to some of the most likely scenarios. That in my opinion, is storytelling.

I would say this is a "situation." The "story" is what emerges when the players engage with the situation. "Storytelling" is therefore just the act of playing the prescribed role as DM or player in the basic conversation of the game. The DM is the "lead storyteller" because he or she controls two out of the three steps in that conversation: describing the environment and narrating the results of the adventurers actions, as opposed to the players who just describe what they want to do. The DMG muddles "storytelling" a little by referring to a particular playstyle as "immersive storytelling" which is what the designers mean by a game without a lot of combat that focuses on PC and NPC interaction such as in a heavily political game. (I personally don't see why that's more "immersive" than any other approach, but nevermind.)

This is how D&D 5e describes it and so those are the definitions I use as it informs how I view the rest of the game. I think they are pretty good as far as that goes and a good benchmark to avoid misunderstandings as to terms. "Story" gets thrown around a lot and it means a lot of different things to different people in my experience.

As for contingency planning the "most likely scenarios," I'm not really into that. Contingency planning is almost by definition going to be wasted preparation. A well-constructed situation where the agenda or drive of the NPCs and monsters is clear should be sufficient in my view to improvise in the moment. This also helps the DM avoid leaning too hard on the PCs to push them in one direction or another in order to get a payoff on the prep.